CRYPTS of TERROR (Saga of The
Demonspawn)(From the
artist's book "Heroes & Villains II")By :
Deborah Susan Jones : EditorThis painting was created in the
artist's Wimbledon-based London studio in January
1992.The painting is
unusual in terms of the artist's normal working methods at that time in
that it takes a picture proportion he normally reserved for wraparound
book covers and up-ends it to a vertical which, when appearing on the
actual book cover, sheds a portion of the top of the picture. At the
time of creation, so hot was the market for the artist's output,
publishers welcomed any extra usage they could extract from a painting
and this layout was tried sometimes to provide the publisher with the
option of areas for a poster to appear in book stores and other printed
promotional settings and positions.Sagas of The Demonspawn was a
Role play game books series written by J. H. Brennan and which, amongst
other countries, was published in Italy by Edizione E.Elle in Trieste,
a publisher that the artist had a long working relationship with born
out of their initial involvement in publishing Joe Dever's Lone Wolf
series which they had initially sub-licensed from Editions Gallimard,
the Paris based publishers of the series and for who they provided
printing services of the French paperback series, which led to the
Italian publisher asking the artist to work on further role play titles
and some related novels in the Italian role play publishing market
during the 1980s and into the 90s.It was also
subsequently licensed to a publisher in the Czech Republic called Laser
Books in February 1997.The picture is
also related to another in the Demonspawn series, Fire Wolf, which
you can see here.Deborah Susan Jones : Editor